


The King Beneath the Stone

by VolxdoSioda



Series: Tea Time [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Afternoon Tea challenge, Demon possession, Horror Elements, M/M, Self-Sacrifice, Virgin Sacrifice, wrongful execution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 15:06:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16494980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VolxdoSioda/pseuds/VolxdoSioda
Summary: Pain and suffering keep the thing beneath Ardyn's skin alive, fuel it to keep killing people year after year. Until Noctis dreams of the rotted tree in the center of the forest, of the man dripping in black ichor, and resolves to keep the attentions of the creature for a full year, and feed it nothing but kindness and love.A game between Kings begins.





	The King Beneath the Stone

The tree is standing exactly where Noctis has dreamed it was before; in the heart of the forest, shadowed beneath the boughs of the others. Withered and grey-green, with sickly looking black veins tracing up it's sides, and down through the roots. There is a smell like coming rain, but no storm clouds overhead. There is a feeling like wind, but the trees don't move even the slightest bit. Black ichor fills in the gaps beneath the roots, and if Noctis focuses he can make out shapes - eerie,  _wrong -_ in the black void. 

But he isn't here for them. His legs tremble with cold, toes gripping the hard ground beneath him, the crunch of leaves the only sound for miles. No sound penetrates the glade - there is a bubble here, of old, powerful magics, dark and twisted as the one who lays beneath the tree.

One who has been slumbering since he was wrongfully executed years ago - the one Noctis has come to offer tribute to. He has nothing but himself, but he knows it will be enough.

He knows its what Ardyn  _wants._

So he lifts his chin, even as he shivers with cold, as he forces the fear back, and speaks clearly. "Ardyn Lucis Caelum, in the name of the Lucis Caelum family, I do hereby offer tribute. I offer myself and no other, and desire this mortal shell would satisfy you for another full year."

Above him, the sensation of wind picks up until it feels like razors against his skin, slicing him from all angles. The ichor seems to flow faster, thicker, and the tree begins to weep it from great sores that open up beneath the bark. Crimson patches that remind Noctis of  _flesh_ stand beneath the black, and he tries not to think about what the tree is made of. Can't think of it, because the earth is beginning to tremble, roots pulling themselves up to form claws.

"I, Noctis Lucis Caelum, 114th Prince of Lucis, do hereby offer myself to the King of the Stone, Ardyn Lucis Caelum. I offer in honesty, in truth, and in dedication to the 4th King of Lucis."

The claws begin to creep along the ground towards him, reaching for him. Noctis sees a skull-like shape in the roots now, and forces himself not to panic when cold tendrils find his ankles, and begin to climb up. It has to be him, because Ardyn desires no other. Noctis doesn't know why, doesn't know what makes him  _special_ enough for an old dead king to take interest in, but if it stops the blight on their crops, the famine on their animals, the plague on their people, Noctis will accept Ardyn's desires. 

The ground beneath his feet begins to soften and sink, and Noctis looks up at the treetops one final time as he's pulled under. He catches a glimpse of the night sky, the moon above, the stars hovering like eyes - and then the dirt is up to his chin, and he takes in one final breath before closing his eyes and being pulled down, down beneath the earth, into the gap between worlds. 

And down, to where Ardyn is waiting.

 

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

 

It starts like this, ten years after Somnus executes his brother. A plague hits the people of Insomnia, wiping out hundreds. The animals start to die, and crops start to fail. But it never goes outside Insomnia, and those who were not there when Ardyn was executed as a traitor to the Crown despite lack of evidence are not affected.

Cities outside Insomnia hastily close their borders as people discover this. The people inside Insomnia try and fail to flee, and die ravaged by a plague that has no start and no end. 

Somnus tries everything, and it's only when a priest from Ifrit's temple comes forward that things begin to change. Because the Infernian demands sacrifice - but not for himself. For the wronged soul currently standing at his gates.

A human sacrifice, one every year, until Ardyn's thirst for vengeance is sated. Until the wrongful death is balanced, and the crime atoned for. At first, Somnus refuses. But every day the plague seems to get worse, the forest and it's surrounding areas sicker, the people less than before, until he can't ignore it any more.

Ardyn gets his sacrifice, and things return to normal. And the year after, he offers another, and things remain the same.

And so it becomes writ in the Lucis Caelum history, that every King must make a sacrifice once a year - a human sacrifice - to appease Ardyn. To keep him happy, to strike the balance clean.

In actuality, it goes so much deeper than that. Not that anyone goes searching - not when Somnus all but declares it law, not when people grow used to one person being chosen as sacrifice, and glorified on their last day alive. Feasts thrown in their honor, name honored and cherished for a few precious hours. Their family given a sum of gold equal to their value.

Not until Noctis. Not until the dreams, where Noctis stands in front of a rotted tree and watches Ardyn pull himself out of its heart, screaming and howling while black ichor drips down his face, a curse laid plain on him. Not until Noctis decides to talk instead of running.

Not until Ardyn tells him the truth.

 

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

 

The truth goes something like this. When Ardyn and Somnus were born, their father was away for a time. Gone to strange new lands to speak to strange new people and open trade routes. A time before Kings were bound to the Citadel. When he returned, he was a new man, a strange man, who grinned far too widely with far too many teeth, and eyes that never blinked.

Their mother didn't see the change. Nor did Somnus. But Ardyn did - the Gods had blessed him with Sacred Sight, and he saw the  _thing_ crawling beneath his father's skin. The thing saw him too, because awareness brings awareness in kind, and it knew if Ardyn grew to be a King, he would order his head chopped off, cutting the illusion short. There would be charges to cover his tracks, to make an excuse, but the thing would be shown as it really was, and it couldn't have that. Not when it was so hungry for souls.

And so the thing plotted as Ardyn did, and on Ardyn's thirty-second year, announced the Crystal had found him  _impure,_ that he was not  _worthy_ because his healing gift had become  _tainted._

In a trial that was little more than pointing fingers and casting blame, stirring the scared people into a frenzy, Ardyn's charges were listed. And he was cast out. But he did not survive. The townspeople, fearing he would return for vengence, tied him to the tree at the heart of the forest, nailed his hands, feet and heart into the trunk, and set the whole thing aflame.

Ardyn went down screaming. And the thing within his father's skin followed, for it had to have a host, and its old husk was useless now. Pain fed it, kept it alive. And Ardyn's agony was the sweetest reward it had tasted in a long time.

This is the truth Ardyn whispers to him when he dreams of the tree, rotted ichor dripping from his body, teeth gnashing with fury. A brother and mother who did not see, and people who betrayed him.  He is not the one who desire vengeance, this thing beneath his flesh does, and it does not want vengeance, but  _food._

 _"I need the Chosen King,"_ Ardyn rasps,  _"His flesh, his body, his desires. It will set me free at last. Love to burn aside hate. Forgiveness to touch what Somnus could not. I hurt all the time now. I am cold. I want to die."_

So that is why Noctis prepares himself in a ritual of his own making, dresses like he would go if he were going to the home of a King, why he sacrifices and uses words meant for maidens begin given God-born husbands. He sacrifices to go to the side of the King Beneath the Stone, to set him free from madness.

Only one is needed, after all. One sacrifice to appease Ardyn for the year. To keep the sickness beneath his skin from taking to the surface again. They have to keep it contained.

 

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

 

"So. You came despite my warnings."

Noctis wakes on a bed he's seen sometimes in his dreams. Not as often as the tree, but sometimes he sees Ardyn lie here, quiet and pale and hating the curse beneath his skin. A man rather than a monster.

"I wasn't going to ignore you," Noctis says, rolling over. Ardyn's face is as he recalls it - scruffy and tired, with dark lines beneath his veins. Noctis reaches out, too bold for his own good, and runs a palm across the man's cheek gently. Ardyn leans into the touch, eyes closing, lips brushing fingertips. 

"What will you do, hapless Prince?" Ardyn whispers, eyes darkening. The moon is high, and the sacrifice is here. The thing beneath wants him. "It will rip us both to shreds."

"No," Noctis says, and shoves forward, rolling Ardyn onto his back and straddling him. "Not tonight it won't."

He expects the pain he gets; the savagery of a monster beneath the skin of a man. He's clawed and bitten, snarled at and shoved around. Taken without askance. The difference here is he treats it like he desires it, tells himself  _let the pain be as pleasure_ and lets his body come from it. The thing beneath Ardyn's skin dines on pain, on suffering. It will find no grip here with Noctis, who brushes gentle hands across his partner and kisses him like a husband rather than a predator. 

It isn't enough to drive the thing back entirely, but it weakens its grip in small bits. When Noctis falls over the edge, Ardyn follows, and when at last the night is over, Noctis is still alive.

"You think you'll win," Ardyn says, when it's just him again, and they're lying side-by-side in a bed made bloody by the beast, "But it won't let you. I've tried, Noctis. So many times. It won't last. You'll last maybe a night, two more before it gets bored. It will want your flesh eventually."

"Then I guess I'll just have to keep it occupied until the year is up," Noctis says.


End file.
